1. Field
The present invention generally relates to wireless subscriber billing systems, and more specifically to automated account mapping for an external purchase charged to the wireless subscriber.
2. Background
Advances in technology have resulted in smaller and more powerful personal computing devices. For example, there currently exist a variety of portable personal computing devices, including laptops, wireless computing devices, such as portable wireless telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and paging devices that are each small, lightweight, and can be easily carried by users. A wireless device is any device that can communicate with other devices without being physically attached to them. Most wireless devices communicate with each other through radio frequencies.
More specifically, the portable wireless telephones, for example, further include cellular telephones that communicate voice and data packets over wireless networks. Further, many such cellular telephones are being manufactured with relatively large increases in computing capabilities, and as such, are becoming tantamount to small personal computers and hand-held PDAs. However, these smaller and more powerful personal computing devices are typically severely resource constrained. For example, the screen size, amount of available memory and file system space, amount of input and output capabilities (e.g., size of keypad and display) and processing capability may each be limited by the small size of the device. Because of such severe resource constraints, it is often typically desirable, for example, to maintain a limited size and quantity of software applications and other information residing on such remote personal computing devices (client devices).
Some of the personal computing devices utilize an application programming interface (API) or application programming interfaces (APIs), sometimes referred to as runtime environments and software platforms, that are installed onto their local computer platform and which are used, for example, to simplify operations of such devices, such as by providing generalized calls for device specific resources. Generally, an API can be considered a set of routines used by an application program to direct the performance of procedures by the computer's operating system.
Further, some such APIs are also known to provide software developers the ability to create software applications that are fully executable on such devices. In addition, some APIs are known to provide mechanisms for secure communications between such personal devices (i.e., clients) and remote devices (i.e., servers) using secure cryptographic information.
Examples of such APIs include versions of the Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless software (BREW®)) developed by QUALCOMM, Inc., of San Diego, Calif. BREW® can cooperate with a computing device's (e.g., a wireless cellular phone) operating system, and can, among other features, provide interfaces to hardware features particularly found on computing devices. BREW® can also provide these interfaces on such computing devices at a relatively low cost with respect to demands on device resources and with respect to the price paid by consumers for devices containing BREW®. Additional features of BREW® include its end-to-end software distribution platform that provides a variety of benefits for wireless service operators, software developers and computing device consumers. At least one such currently available end-to-end software distribution platform includes logic distributed over a server-client architecture, where the server performs, for example, billing, security and application distribution functionality, and the client performs, for example, application execution, security and user interface functionality.
In conventional wireless systems, a wireless client device can obtain these additional services, application and/or content from one or more servers. Typically, a server that controls billing will associate a specific Subscriber Identification (SID) to the transaction so that the transaction can be billed to the appropriate account. The SID may not be any number known to the subscriber and therefore may not be usable outside the wireless client device-to-server transaction environment. Accordingly, this limits the ability for wireless subscribers to use their established accounts for purchases other than those hosted by their carrier/operators.
The foregoing description of the related art is merely intended to provide an overview of some of the billing related processes in wireless subscriber systems and as an introduction to the BREW®) platform, which can be used in embodiments of the invention. However, the invention is not to be construed as being limited to a specific implementation, operating platform or environment.